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Saturday, February 15, 2014

Qatar unwittingly forces potential improvement of soccer governance

This is hardly how Qatar would have wanted to do it, but the
Gulf state has unwittingly contributed to a potential improvement in the
governance of soccer and word sports as a result of mounting controversy over
its labour standards. .

The controversy in which Qatar has sought to evade political
demands for granting workers full political rights, including the right to
organize freely and bargain collectively, by adopting significantly improved
standards for their living and working conditions is forcing international
sports associations to make human and other rights part of their criteria for
awarding in future a country the right to host a mega sporting event.

"We need to rethink this and give human rights a much
higher status," Theo Zwanziger, speaking
on behalf of world soccer body FIFA, told a European parliament hearing on
Qatar this week.

Mr. Zwanziger’s statement follows last year’s rejection by
the International Olympics Committee (IOC) of Qatar’s bid to host the 2020
Olympics, in part, according to labour activists, because of workers’ conditions
in the Gulf state.

Mr. Zwanziger admitted in his testimony that the plight of
foreign workers, who constitute a majority of the population of the tiny energy-rich
state, had not been a consideration in the awarding three years ago of the 2022
World Cup to Qatar.

That has now backfired and put both Qatar and FIFA on the
defensive. Neither Qatar nor FIFA recognized at the time that the awarding
would not only enhance the Gulf state’s prestige but give leverage to activists
like the international trade unions which they had lacked prior to Qatar’s successful
bid.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has
campaigned for the last three years against the kafala or sponsorship system,
prevalent not only in Qatar but also other Gulf states, that effectively
restricts workers’ freedoms, including travel and the ability to seek
alternative employment, and makes them dependent on their employers.

To Qatar’s credit, it has sought to structurally address concerns
about material living and working conditions and actively engaged with the
International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency, and human
rights groups like Amnesty International.

The Qatari committee responsible for delivering World
Cup-related infrastructure this week issued in advance of the European
parliament hearing its most detailed workers welfare standards to date yet, a 50-page
document to be included in all tournament-related contracts.

Although denounced by the ITUC as too little, too imprecise
and failing to address the fundamental sponsorship issue, the standards, if
properly implemented and policed, do in significant ways improve workers’
living and working conditions.

In contrast to the ILO and Amnesty, which endorsed the
standards as a step forward while insisting that Qatar still has to address the
far more invasive and painful issue of sponsorship, Qatar’s relationship with
the ITUC has remained acrimonious.

Qatari officials say the trade unions have been far less
sensitive to the fact that Qatari reluctance to address those issues are not
simply the recalcitrance of an autocracy, albeit an enlightened one. Unlike in
other countries where the citizenry accounts for a majority of the population,
granting rights of any kind to foreigners raises the spectre of the minority
Qatari population losing control of its country, society and culture.

This is not to say that foreigners, and in this case
workers, should not have those rights. What it does say however is that change
is a far more existential, intrusive and gut-wrenching process Failure
to recognize that risks hardening dividing lines rather than creating an
environment in which interests of all parties are taken into account, fears are
addressed and the pain involved in fundamental change is eased. By the same
token, the ITUC’s hard line ensures that the larger issues that go beyond the
immediate living and working conditions of foreign workers remain on the table.

The stakes for all parties are high and perhaps highest for
the Qatar. Privately, many Qataris recognize that

evading the demographic issue
is unsustainable even if they don’t know what the solution is.

To be fair, Qatar’s grappling with some aspects of
fundamental issues while seeking to evade others has already produced change. In
a region governed by autocrats that more often than not refuse to seriously
engage with their critics, Qatar has set a precedent with its engagement with
international organizations like Amnesty.

Human rights, trade union and media focus on the plight of foreign
workers has put fundamental rights firmly on the agenda of international sports
associations at the cost of considerable reputational damage to Qatar that
threatens its goal of employing sports to acquire soft power. It has made FIFA
as much a party pressuring the Qataris for change as are the trade unions or
human rights groups.

Depending on proper implementation and policing, significant
aspects of foreign workers’ living and working conditions will be addressed.
Qatar is also already looking at ways of tackling other equally onerous stages
of a worker’s migration cycle, first and foremost the frequently corrupt
recruitment process that puts labourers into high debt even before they set
foot in the Gulf state.

All of this widens cracks in the door. The trick now is to carry
that process forward. To do so, an international division of labour with good
and bad cops may well serve its purpose. There is no guaranteed outcome. But the
choices that Qatar and ultimately other Gulf states face have never before been
posed in starker terms.

Awarding the World Cup to Qatar was “a risk and a chance... (that
could) help improve the human rights situation," Mr. Zwanziger told the
European parliament.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological
University. He is also co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute
for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same
title.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile